these did I find the suggestion that I sought.

I found, however, in the court that lies before us, the simple, modest
figure hidden behind some soldiers - a gaunt, slim, plodding figure, and
I said to myself, there is the figure that represents this day, for
without the American pioneer we would not be here this day, no banners
would be flying, no bands playing.

He has-lived for centuries and centuries. He took sail with Ulysses and
he was turned back. He took sail with Columbus, and when he heard that
sailor shout, "Sail on and on," his heart was glad; but Columbus found
his way barred, and then this pioneer landed at Plymouth Rock, and with
that band of oxen he has trudged his way across the continent, he has
gone through the sodden forests, where Nature for a thousand years has
conspired to make his pathway impossible.

He has gone through the icy streams, climbed the mountains, tracked his
way over the plains, over the land where there is no horizon, gone
through the gorges where the Titans have been, and at last he has got
it, beside the Golden Gate, beside the sunset sea, and founded himself
this city, this beautiful city of dreams that have come true. And he has
done more than that, he has gathered around himself his sons, and now
they set themselves down here to tell each other tales of their progress
through the centuries.

The sons of the pioneers - theirs be the glory today, for they have
slashed the continent in two, they have cut the land that God made as
with a knife, they have made the seas themselves to lift the ships
across the barriers and mountains, and this accomplishment we celebrate.